


Something to Hope For

by black_hat_with_bells



Category: Heroes - Fandom
Genre: F/M, animal death and child death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-02
Updated: 2011-05-02
Packaged: 2017-10-18 21:20:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/193419
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/black_hat_with_bells/pseuds/black_hat_with_bells
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the release of the virus, Adam and Claire are the only survivors.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Something to Hope For

**Author's Note:**

> This story has a sequel here: http://archiveofourown.org/works/203010

The road was dead silent.

Claire had to use a flashlight to see the map she had gotten from a shop. She had left the money for it on the counter even though the man dead behind it wouldn’t have cared. She knew it was more for herself than him.

She had only one hope and that was in New York. She had driven through rows of cars with people (families) inside of them, and the streetlights had already started to fade, to go off. They flickered back and forth and buzzed angrily.

She didn’t know which she’d prefer: the buzzing or the silence.

In the beginning, Claire had made a habit of checking the cars on the side of the road. One car, the car that had been the last car she ever checked, had a man in it, his head slumped over the steering wheel.

The flashers were on, and so she had thought…she saw his hand in the window. She moved him back and saw the words Sylar imprinted on a watch and flew backwards as if she had been burnt.

She landed on the hot asphalt, moving back with her legs as quickly as she could. In the window of the car, his dead eyes watched her, and she felt revulsion. And pity.

And perhaps disappointment. He had been a man after all, and some instinct that had been with her in the locker room that time told her that he had been trying to get to her.

He hadn’t made it before the virus found him. She didn’t know how to feel about it: on one hand, sickening triumph and relief and on the other…

Claire went back towards the car and closed his eyes with her trembling fingers. She took the watch off.

It was the only thing she took with her, really, besides her father’s gun and bullets. She hadn’t wanted to move a thing from her parents’ home.

Not a thing except for Mr. Muggles who was her lifeline right now.

So, she drove in darkness and hoped for the best while Mr. Muggles settled down in the backseat. Claire also didn’t know how she’d feel if the Petrelli’s had made it as opposed to her family. It was so messed up, and because it caused her pain, she listened to her CD’s in the car and made of Lyle’s commentary of how bad a driver she was.

The important goal was to keep moving, each day, and try not to get lost.

(as if there was anyone to--)

She turned up her music with people singing who were probably gone by now.

***

Claire broke into the convenience store to ‘pay’ for petty stuff like candy bars and a carton of water and Diet Pepsi. There were people everywhere.

A boy lay there in the middle of the aisle, and she had to step by him and grab the whole box. She imagined his hand grabbing her ankle. She looked down at his face which was ruining and horrible and gray, and saw a university shirt and a wedding ring.

Curious, she knelt down and wondered what was in his hand.

Baby formula.

She stood up, and his face was very much alive, very much cheated and accusing. She left the money, fought the smell, and moved outside.

Mr. Muggles wagged his tail from the driver’s window where he had been perched, waiting. She smiled at him, waving and watching his tail wag harder.

Claire took a step, her feet crunching on gravel, and then heard a sound that chilled her to the bones. She turned to see another dog, a big dog with matted fur, growling at her. There were hot, wet sounds, and yet another dog turned the corner, his muzzle smeared with…

Blood.

Claire kept her smile and walked slowly towards the car. Their heads ducked low in a hunting stance and they stalked close, curious. Her gun was in the car. She opened the car with her keys, which made it beep, and she had thought that would keep them away.

Instead, she heard the skittering of nails on the pavement.

She screamed and jerked the door open. Mr. Muggles went wild and jumped in the passenger seat, barking and growling. Claire felt teeth tear through the bottom half of her jeans and right into her calf muscle.

She felt something give, a distant spark of pain, and another jerk as the dog wanted to take her down to the ground. To her horror, Mr. Muggles jumped over her shoulder and onto the dog below.

“No!” she screamed and grabbed the gun from the dashboard. The other dog, a big German Sheppard, lunged at her and she lunged herself and let it have her arm. Its teeth bit through her skirt and into her skin, and it tugged, its eyes wild and dark.

She brought up the gun, aimed into its (hishis) chest and closed her eyes. The recoil went off in her hand. Something heavy flew away from her with a cry. Almost a shriek.

Claire turned at her dog’s frantic yelp of pain and aimed again, eyes open this time.

Mr. Muggles’s was bleeding and his eyes were asking her to fix this, but this was okay because she could try and heal him with her blood and a syringe. He didn’t have a virus that kept mutating and hurting him worse each time she healed him (no…that was for her family where her father finally told her to…)

Turns out, her blood did not work on animals.

***

The Petrelli mansion was her last hope.

She climbed the gate and didn’t want to go inside because she’d find out. The streets had been horrible. She’d had to abandon her (dad’s) car because of the traffic jam. She had walked past car after car after car with birds spiraling above her, with her school backpack on her back.

Taking one step after another.

There was no one home. Except she hadn’t checked upstairs yet. Oh shit, she didn’t to see them like that. She sat in the living (ha) room, her hand clasped, getting control over herself.

The world had become like her body, trapping her within it while on the outside, nothing got through. Nothing affected her.

This house was foreign, and it was not her home, never would be. But it still had Peter here, Peter who would never fit inside this mansion. It was like a museum now, with their portraits on the wall and their eyes in an eternal smile.

On the subject of Peter's life...Claire knew he was dead. Otherwise, he would have come to save her.

God she was...hurting herself so badly. How was she going to make this? How could she not make it? It wasn’t the healing that was the problem: it was the choice. There was this choice presented to her: live forever or die by offing yourself. Claire guessed she was afraid of that aspect, still.

This choice was completely, completely unfair.

“Unfair,” she whispered to no one, turning a complete circle in the room. How unfair had it been to the other, uh, whole world population? The thought of her selfishness hurt her, so she thought on it often, turning the circle in the room again.

She hit the table, blundering into it, and a small picture toppled and fell. She gasped, more intensely in pain than by any of the bodies she had passed by. She felt as if Angela would have been disappointed or upset by it.

“Then you’d frown and say nothing in that way of yours, huh?” Claire asked. “’Don’t worry yourself, dear, we have people to clean that up’.”

Claire would go to Peter’s room and learn things about him. See what movies he liked, what his favorite song was, what his dreams were. Claire was a bit afraid because the image she had built up in her head might clash with what she’d see.

But what else did…

There were footsteps above her head. Dust that had already gathered above her rained down on her. The chandelier shook slightly.

A definite sign of life unless she was going crazy. The thought had crossed her mind. Claire slowly took out her gun and crept up the stairs.

No one was alive for this whole trip up to New York . Weeks of being on the road had offered no person to share the road with…or defend herself from.

Frustrated, she yelled, “Hello!”

No answer. She didn’t inform this person (or thing, what else could happen on this nightmare road show) that she had a gun. She walked quietly down the immaculate hallways.

There wasn’t a noise per se. There was a presence. A sense of life after having experienced just the opposite for weeks: it was in Angela’s bedroom.

“Angela,” Claire whispered, questioningly.

A footstep behind her. She spun around and her finger on the trigger did her speaking for her. A blonde man fell backwards onto the floor, clutching his stomach, the expression of pain clear on his face.

“Oh my god!”

Fear raced through her as she hurried to his side. Jesus. She had just shot the last remaining human being besides herself! She tore at his shirt and saw the blood and the wound and-oh my god.

“Hold on, let me get--.”

“It’s all right. I’ll live,” he said, grabbing her shoulder, and Claire watched as the bullet push (being pushed) out of his skin and fall to the floor. She stared and reached out her hand, touching his stomach through the blood. She felt his muscles flinch away from her touch, and she drew back, feeling awkward.

He didn’t feel awkward enough not to touch her face with his hands, as if testing her reality. Blue eyed, he looked young even if he was older than her.

“It’s all right,” he repeated, and she caught sight of the knife lying by him. He followed her gaze. “That was for self-defense, I wasn’t intending to kill you-.”

Claire grabbed it and held it to her arm, plunging it in. He yelled and scrambled to grab her.

“No, no, don’t do…”

The look on his face as she healed in front of him was kind of priceless and it would have been comical, had it not been for her previous experiences before this moment.

“I’ll live too,” she told him.

***

Adam sat by the fire, watching her and sipping a glass of wine.

For some reason, that annoyed her, the wine thing, though she couldn’t pinpoint why.

Claire had her hair tied up because she was aware she probably smelled like crap. She had showered at various hotels along the way but she had just walked through hell. She had finally found someone and was just staring at them.

What.

“Um,” she said, nervously, sitting on the chair on the opposite side of the room. She put her hands on her knees. “Well, traffic was really bad getting here.”

He smirked-smiled a little. Whatever it is.

“I’m sorry about…you called it ‘gut-shooting’. I’m sorry I gut-shot you.”

“First thing’s first. How old are you?” he asked.

Claire wondered how that mattered and then she grew offended because what exactly was he trying to imply?

“I’m seventeen,” she said, with a defiant tilt of her chin. Adding a year.

“Really?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Okay, sixteen, but…” She shrugged. “So.”

“Ah.” Adam smiled at the fire, as if knowing a secret. “I thought you were fairly young but I couldn’t be sure.”

“And how old would I be, a thousand years old?”

“That would have been impressive. You could have told me some stories.”

“Ha,” Claire said, rolling her eyes. He sighed.

“I’m older than I look,” he told her, still smiling.

“Okay I’ll bite. How old?”

“Four-hundred.”

“I knew I shouldn’t have gone for a thousand the first time,” Claire said, smiling back—and her smile faded as she realized he was serious. Absolutely serious. She knew inside of her, inside of her very bones, that this was the truth. The truth of her power and a truth that deep down was just innately as true as when she saw her biological mother for the first time—

She was glad she was sitting down.

“That’s just you and not just…I mean, I’m not going to…”

“You will,” he said simply. “And I’m not going to apologize for telling you.”

“Um. Why not?” she asked, still shell-shocked.

“Because it’s not…it’s not bad news,” he said, seeming perfectly content in his answer to her.

“In this situation, you don’t feel like it’s bad news to be alive,” Claire said, keeping herself calm or trying to. Trying to and failing. His complete ease was making her angry.

He looked outside, at the silence. “No. This was the starting point of the virus, or so I was lead to believe. At this point, it was more potent. At other ends of the country, I’m positive there are survivors.”

“I drove here from California,” Claire said then winced. She hated to be the one to tell him.

He kept his smile. “Did you travel all corners of the earth on your way from California?”

Claire didn’t like that phrasing. At all.

“Must have missed them,” she said, coolly. “Maybe there were covered up by the dead people.”

“Oh, no. I didn’t mean any offense. I was just merely illustrating a point.”

“I got what you were doing.”

They stared at each other some more, and he ‘hmm’d’ and took up his glass again.

“I understand that you’ve been through quite a bit,” he offered.

“I’m sorry,” she apologized, running a hand through her hair and stopping short due to her hair-tie. “I’m just…”

He nodded and waved a hand. “All’s forgiven.”

“Well. Maybe,” she said, determined not to—it was important not to let him push her around or make him think that he could easily. If he was the only person in—states—around who was alive, he couldn’t abuse her. Hell, even most people might abuse someone in this situation. Like high-school on acid. Anyway, she had to put a stop to it now.

“I see.” Smile, smile.

“I don’t understand why you’re here, in this house, out of all the houses in America. It can’t be a coincidence, considering you have uh, superpowers like me. And the Petrelli’s hobby…you know something, especially if you are really that old.”

“That old,” he said, looking at the ceiling as if she was amusing the hell out of him. She didn’t apologize that time. “I assume by hobby you are referring to the Company.”

She narrowed her eyes, resisting the urge for a sarcastic remark and ‘put-put golf’. “Yeah.”

“I was a prisoner of theirs for forty years.”

She sat back. “What.”

“A prisoner. You know, they lock you in the room-.”

She held up a hand. “What did you do to get locked up?”

“I got caught.”

“You.” Claire pursed her lips. “Okay. Let’s call it a night. You were here first, so I’ll try some houses across the way. In the morning, maybe we’ll both feel better.”

“Wait,” he said sharply but she was on her feet and moving towards the door. Trying not to jog, trying not to show any fear at all. She made it to the door but so did he, his hand slamming it shut before she got out. Her heart started to pound. Her gun was re-holstered but she hoped she could get to it in time before he…what.

She turned around to face him, and he was so close she could feel the heat of his body, and he studied her in the dark. The hair on the back of her neck stood up in fear and something else.

“You’re right,” he said. “We should both rest and calm down a little.”

“You seem just fine.”

“Than-.”

“Don’t.”

He raised an eyebrow.

“Don’t talk down to me.”

He almost rolled his eyes and then looked at the top of the door. “This is going to sound absolutely strange, but most people actually like me when they first meet me.”

“And then after they get to know you, they lock you up.”

He laughed. “Now that was you, that time.”

She crossed her arms.

“What I’m saying is the moment when it matters to get along, I meet someone who seems to want to take offense to every word out of my mouth.”

Claire shook her head. Pinning it on her wouldn’t work either. “I’ve been through a lot,” she said. “I know you have too.”

He gave her a fairly dangerous look that lasted half a minute but she caught it in time. He lowered his arm and moved away from her, not smiling and not sunny.

“I hope you can appreciate the position I’m in. You’re the first person I’ve seen in months,” he said. “I hope it’s not something that is taken advantage of.”

“I’m not that kind of person,” she said simply. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

Claire walked past him and up the stairs, feeling chilled but also quite…angry. Upset. It was like she had hit a brick wall. She chose a guest room, wondering mildly why he hadn’t been in this guest room—why he was in her grandmother’s…but she locked the door behind her and set the gun on the dresser.

She laid down and tried to slow her breathing.

Eventually, she fell asleep.

***

In the morning, there was food on the table.

Breakfast. Eggs. And Claire had to admit that she saw the eggs and was deeply grateful. She did feel better after being showered but the sudden let-go of stress from finding someone did make her feel bad even though that was physically impossible.

“I’m glad to see you’re still here,” he said. He sat at the end of the table, very considerately, and she was suspicious. She nodded and settled at the other end. If this was poison, well—she’d try and not be too angry when she came back to life.

They ate in silence and then the light above flickered and threatened to go out. She frowned up at it, wondering.

“Don’t be frightened. It’s been doing that since the last two weeks. Hasn’t gone out yet.”

Then she looked down the long edge of the table and saw that he was the one who was frightened. She was too, but she didn’t mention it like he did. His voice seemed strained. Maybe she had been too…too uncompromising before. She picked up her plate and walked to where he was sitting. Pulled out the chair beside him and sat down to eat there.

His shoulder’s un-tensed and he looked at her a little more softly than before.

“I wasn’t…locked up for any real reason other than being my age. The immortality fascinated them, you see.”

Claire closed her eyes and nodded. “I’m sure it did.”

“They experimented on me, so you’ll understand if I’m not fond of them. Or wasn’t fond of them, as it is.”

“Why were you here?”

“I was curious to see if they made it after I was let out. When everyone was…someone took pity on me and let me out before there was no one there to let me out.”

Claire shuddered. “Thank god for that person.”

“You believe me?”

“I don’t think it matters that much,” she said. “At this point. If you know what I mean.”

“That’s a very mature decision,” he said. “I promise you that when I got here, everyone was gone. There has been no one back since. I remained because I didn’t much have a choice. There were riots in the street, and one day bled into another day. Until a month had gone by.”

He looked at her again, thoughtful. “What about you?”

She swallowed hard.

“Bad time to talk about it, then,” he said, as if he was doing her a favor.

“No. No it’s all right. I was…just living my life when this happened. Everyone in my family is gone. I.”

“No one survived with you? I don’t mean to pry but with your genetics, I was wondering if there was a possibility.”

“I um, was adopted but neither of them had this power. No one in their families did, I think. I did have…this is going to sound stupid but I had my dog with me.”

“Not at all. Animals seem immune. But you left him somewhere or…”

She had to set down her glass very quickly and before she knew it, she was crying. She hadn’t even felt it. She hadn’t cried at the time of it either, or really when her family died. She didn’t even realize she was crying until the walls blurred.

He didn’t seem to know what to do, and she wasn’t leading him any place. She just gripped the sides of her chair. He hesitantly placed his hand on top of hers. She wanted to hit him but…she looked up at the ceiling.

“To be honest, I don’t know what you want from me, yet, or…how to comfort you. I know how it is to be at the mercy of the world, when you lose...everyone."

"And can't change a thing about it," Claire said.

He looked at her for a long time.

“It doesn’t matter now. And thank you. I mean that,” she said and slowly moved her hand. He leaned back, watching her, clearly trying to figure her out. She sighed and relented. “He um. There was a pack of wild dogs near a convenience store and they attacked me. He tried to protect me and he was the size of a shoe. I should have been taking care of him. It was…completely my fault.”

“A pack of dogs…” He looked nervous for a moment and then accepted the thought. “Of course. Seems like an accident to me. But possibly it was because of misjudgment.”

She looked over at him. He seemed to understand that she didn’t want denial over what had happened.

“I think it was my fault. There’s nothing I can do to change his death, like there was nothing I could do to change anyone else's.”

All those people she could not save (but only herself.) His eyes flickered over to hers, a sense of understanding there.

“I’m…sorry that happened.”

“I’m glad I have someone to be sorry about it with me.”

“I’m going to give you some time. A few days to adjust. I’ll be out for the day. I was hoping to go solve the problem of the power outage. Surely it just needs to be maintained. Afterwards, try to establish communication to the outside world somehow. A police station, perhaps, or a radio station, television station. There has to be a way.”

She nodded. “Sounds like a plan but…I think we should go together.”

He furrowed his brow. “Really.”

“I couldn’t just let you go out there alone,” Claire said. “Riding alone has definitely shown me how dangerous it is. You could use the backup.”

He looked at her with some new approval that she didn’t ask for but guessed she appreciated. In some way.

“I could. I’ll wait.”

She smiled, a little tensely, and went back to the breakfast. After all that—and eating seemed like lie but he had prepared it for her, so. She’d go along with it. She finished and nodding to him briefly went to turn into the kitchen.

“One question for you,” he said. “If you don’t mind.”

She waited.

“What was your connection with the Petrelli family?”

She hesitated.

“It doesn’t matter now,” he added.

“I was adopted. My biod…my biological father was Nathan Petrelli.”

Adam smiled, sardonically. “That family never seems…” He stopped himself, giving her a look. She tilted her head and then decided it wasn’t worth the argument.

“Well, they’re gone now,” she said instead and after cleaning up her plate, retreated back upstairs.

***

Claire stayed in the guest room, and the sunlight beating into the room was uncomfortable. She could here him moving down there, in the area of the library, and she was trying to avoid running into him.

She dozed for hours, and when night fell, she turned on a small lamp as to make it seem like there was still life out there. She noticed something when she looked outside—those lights were on in the buildings nearby but only across from the Petrelli mansion.

Claire suspected he had gone over there himself to turn them back on. It made her feel a little more sorry for him. As much as he was trying to appear undisturbed (not for her sake, she knew that much….just because of his pride), he must have been bothered enough to do that. She tried to rest and not want to…just get away from it all.

Ending it for good—if there was no one left—was a possibility. Only now she’d be leaving someone behind. Claire—hated meeting him because she couldn’t see herself just leaving someone in this hell.

“God,” she whispered to the walls. “I hate morals.” She kicked at the blanket, staring at the clock. That was why she knew just what time the lights finally failed.

Eleven o’clock on the dot, and a terrible groaning sound and the lights just went off. She was plunged into complete darkness.

Claire bolted up, and the fear that assailed her was overwhelming. She stumbled to her feet and made it to her backpack. Her cell-phone was almost (dead) too but there was enough power left to get a small light going to find Adam.

She checked the rooms and then journeyed downstairs. She found him asleep in the chair, in the library as she had suspected. She crept forward and very gently touched his shoulder.

He jerked as if she had gut-shot him again.

“Don’t shock me aga--…oh it’s you.”

“Me,” she said, holding up her phone. “The lights are de…out. Gone.”

Adam raised his face to hers. “I suppose that means I should have gone today.”

“I guess it does,” she said, shamelessly. Not her fault. At all.

“I’ll go now.”

“That’s kind of insane.”

He bit his lip. “Don’t talk to me like that. Ever.”

“I think I can talk anyway I like.”

“I’ll leave you here.”

“You won’t.”

Adam glared fire at her. That was a new side of him entirely. Claire stood there calmly with her phone.

“I have a flashlight. I’ll go with you, if you want to go tonight. During the day, though-.”

“I don’t want to have to see corpses everywhere. It’s unbearable enough as it is. By now, the survivors should have cleaned them up.”

No survivors, duh. But Claire held back.

“Let me get the flashlight.”

To her satisfaction, he waited for her in the entryway.

***

The smell of death was so horrible that Claire had to work on not gagging.

He was trying to act as if he wasn’t affected at all but she could catch the grimace and how closely he walked beside her. It was so dark outside; the moon and stars were being hidden behind clouds.

Halfway down the street (where he was leading her, and he’d better know where he was going) a sound rang out of a trashcan being knocked over. They both jumped, and Claire reached for her gun.

He aimed the light.

It was a dog. A smaller one than a German Sheppard but it stared at them as if sizing them up before moving on down the street and disappearing again behind some buildings.

“Well, that’s a problem,” he said.

She heard his voice, that cheerful little…lie, and she slipped her hand in his. He took her comfort easily enough, squeezing her hand despite himself. The power plant was completely dark when they got there.

Good sign.

Opening the door, she heard it hit against a body.

“I think we’re in the right place,” she said. “Help me push.”

Together, they managed to get in. He was uncharacteristically quiet, flashing the light over every bit of machinery, and she could see his expression clearly enough to know what he was thinking.

How were they going to make this work.

“Maybe in an office there’s a manual,” Claire offered and he nodded, seemed about to say something else, and then nodded again.

There wasn’t a manual in the office. But she could see the room where most of the machines were, and Claire told him, calmly, that she’d try and figure it out.

Then he just started to laugh. She was about to get mad again until he basically collapsed against the wall and slid down it into the floor.

Claire grew still, not wanting to make a move.

He just laughed and covered his face with his hands. “This doesn’t—bother me one bit,” he said, wearing this twisted expression of almost desperate joy, and he was flushed red.

“Good to know,” Claire said, hesitating and then walking towards him. She switched off the flashlight. Seemed for the best.

“I mean really when you get down to it, I’ve been through countless wars. I’ve been in countless wars, really, and there were dead people everywhere.”

“Oh,” she said because what else could she say?

“I volunteered, love, I was a mercenary, did you know that?”  
Great. Wonderfully fucked up, thank you. Still, she knelt beside him and put her hand on his knee.

“But this is still different. It’s okay to be freaked out by it.”

“Fre-freaked out by it. Freaked out by it, she says. How concise. Poetry. A right fountain of wisdom. To be or not to be freaked out.”

Claire kept her hand on his knee.

“I’m all right,” he told her after a little while.

“I don’t think you are.”

He scoffed. “I don’t care. I’m really just above all this.”

She should have felt a shiver of revulsion but..she understood where he was coming from even if she dearly didn't want to. She knew he cared, maybe a little too much. She just squeezed his knee lightly about to get to her feet, but he reached out quickly to keep her hand there with his.

“Can’t you understand? I didn’t mean to say…”

“You said you didn’t care but... I guess that’s the only way to accept what happened,” she said, letting him off the hook. He should take it, if he had any brains at all.

“They were all dying, first off,” he said. “You don’t think about it at first but then it’s absolutely true. The wives I had: moreover, any woman I had sex with was dying. I’m not dying, and they are, and we slept together. Do you understand that?”

Claire was a little more than repulsed about now. She understood perfectly. That was the horror.

“And then when I was trapped—I realized centuries ago, how like children all these adults were. Your father would be like a child to me. Your grandfather as well. I was stuck in that cage and there was this little girl. She’d come by my cell all the time and then one day, she wasn’t a little girl. Can you imagine what she wanted from me? What I could give, what I did-”

“Stop,” Claire said. He looked at her but didn’t let her go.

“You were right. Before.”

“Have to be more specific.”

“About there being no one else. By this time, there would have been someone else. I stayed in New York for months. It’s New York. Even in the city, just a few would have survived. That’s the nature of a virus, there’s always a few exceptions.”

“For two exceptions,” she said sadly, fear clenching her heart. But she had to keep calm for this other person. Had to just keep calm.

“The damn thing was just so…unexpectedly well-made.”

“Made?” Claire asked.

“You couldn’t believe it to be natural, still. How quickly it moved. It was designed too bloody well. Common sense dictated that there should be exceptions to this virus as there had been before. Science dictated it. For there to be no one left…”

“There might be people left like you said. Maybe it’s such a tragedy that it’s setting them back. But let’s go back to the house. I think we need to regroup, rethink our approach.”

He grabbed her, suddenly, and she tensed, ready to fight, but he pulled her into a very desperate…she couldn’t really say it was a hug, this was a lifeline grip.

“Don’t leave,” he whispered into her shoulder. “Just don’t leave.”

Claire’s resolve broke. Or it just disappeared, faded instantly. She held him back.

“I won’t. I promise, okay.”

He sighed in relief and then seemed to come back into himself. He tensed up and she let go.

“I’m all right. Just disappointed about how futile… This wasn’t a good idea to come here.”

She was quiet and stood up. He quickly followed suit, and they made their way back to the mansion, not saying a word.

***

Weeks passed and New York grew worse.

Flies filled the street now. Forget the dogs. Flies and cats and birds. She caught sight of more than a few snakes. When she battled her way into the supermarket, hello cockroaches. Hello rats.

Near the old vegetables, one ran across her shoe. The smell was beyond—putrid. He had told her to wear this old mask gasmask he had found, but it was no use. She could feel it on her skin.

They couldn’t be here much longer. Adam questioned her when she came back empty handed. She told him why. He just looked out the window.

“I want to wait. This is New York, and if there’s a response--.”

“If there’s a response, we have time to find out later.”

“That defeats…that defeats the whole purpose of everything.”

Claire frowned at him, not understanding. Sometimes at night, he would walk by her door and she’d wait, wondering…and he’d move on. He wasn’t really the type of person you could get close to easily. Beyond the smiles and sunny charm, he withheld the rest of himself. The longer you were with him, the more apparent it became.

Claire would like to know what he thought she’d do to him. What would it matter now? It was like trying to get through a wall, and she just felt…at a loss because she held back most of herself too.

They had tried a radio station by now. Television station. All the computers were still buzzing and jammed, and the few areas she could get in, no one answered.

“I think, if we really want to survive this,” she told him, “we’ll have to actually move on.”

He didn’t say a word.

Another week, and a storm blew most of the bones and bodies into the yard…he agreed with her, finally.

"You have a choice, you know," he said. "If you want to accompany me or not."

She didn't really.

But she appreciated that he knew what a choice meant to her.

***

The car worked fine until they got out of the city.

Then it died. It choked. Adam made a face at her, his eyes hidden behind sunglasses, as they limped down the road. Smoke poured out from underneath the hood.

“In a past life, I must have done some really bad shit,” she said simply and got out of the car.

“I haven’t had a past life yet,” he said as he got out and surveyed the other stalled cars. “I’m fond of the black car. What about you?”

“I’m not leaving this car. I’m going to pop the hood.”

He turned slowly in place and put his hands in his pockets. “You can fix engines?”

“We’ll find out.”

He walked a little ways off while she stared at the engine, waving the smoke out of her face. She wasn’t going to say anything. No. She really wasn’t.

“You think I’m perfectly useless, don’t you?” he asked from behind her. She jerked and hit her head on the hood. “Oh…”

He steadied her from falling and she glared up at him. “Not for getting me hurt obviously.”

He let her go and she almost fell over. “Adam!”

“I admit it. I have no idea what to do with machines.”

“You were around when they invented the car,” she accused.

“Yes, and I had the best mechanic in seven states in my employ.”

Claire threw her hands up in the air, and he took that as an offense.

“I don’t see the importance of knowing what isn’t that important, and I don’t see how it applies now. We have the pick of any car in the world.”

“This is the car my dad bought me for my birthday,” she said, her blood running cold.

That shut him up. He looked over at the engine again, uncertain.

“Forget it,” she said, tired. “Just forget it. Pick a car that’s your favorite color.”

“I…”

She ignored him and grabbed the bags out of the backseat. He chose the black convertible and had to drag the people out of it. What was left of them. She stood back and let him do that part.

The smell was so bad he had to put the top down, a grimace on his face.

“Pick of any car in the world,” she mused, and he clenched his jaw.

She watched her car disappear in the rear view mirror.

***

The house was in the middle of nowhere.

It was, in fact, a farmhouse of the side of a small town. Adam pulled into the driveway with dread.

She looked at him questioningly.

“It doesn’t stink as much out here,” he said stiffly. No one was home, thank god. He wandered around the house, taking down pictures, and with her watching, he chucked them in the garbage.

Nice.

“I’m going to go to the library,” she said. “I think there’s a generator outside, and I want to figure out how to get it running.” She paused. “Unless you know how.”

He didn’t turn around from his searching of the drawers in the kitchen.

“Go on. Stay all day if you’d like.”

Claire rolled her eyes. Upon investigation of the library, she picked up several books on farming, on basic fix-it-up around the house, and manuals for budding mechanics. Then she went to a department store and grabbed every tool she could find. It was a heavy load to do by herself but she stole a shopping basket too.

She couldn’t even pretend to pay for it because how much was a freakin’ shopping cart?

She marched home, and he had found another book to read. He looked over the edge of his, saw the titles, and smirked before returning to his book.

Claire went outside and attacked the generator. She had all the tools she needed and did she mention she was determined?

Hours passed. Claire read over the words again and again. She poked at metal pieces, arranging them as per instructions. It had gas in it, she checked. Wait, should it have gas?

The door slammed and Adam came around the corner of the house as if he had a purpose, a mission. He did. He took the book away from her.

“Hey!…You’re smoking.”

He was, a cigarette in his mouth. “Haven’t in years, yes. You have driven me to it. Now what are we looking at here?”

“A generator.”

The cigarette pointed upward as he frowned.

“I got you back for the ‘I got caught’ comment,” Claire informed him. He raised an eyebrow, having to think about it. Then he remembered.

“So you did. Did you look at the pictures?”

“I also looked at the footnotes. Someone wrote in pencil to just hit it really hard.”

“You tried that already. For two hours,” he commented, and flipped through the book. Then he turned the book upside down.

“Oh wow,” Claire said drily. This would take forever, good thing they had it. He fiddled with something she had fiddled with before, and she was about to tell him off about it, and everything else, when the generator roared to life.

They both stared at it, caught off guard.

Then the overwhelming sense of accomplishment caught them off guard. He tossed the book in the air and she leapt to her feet, and somehow, someway unknown to her, they ended up intertwined with each other over a generator.

She’d be surprised by the violence of how he kissed her, only she wasn’t. She imagined it was because there was no one else alive, and this is how you knew you weren’t dead. When your body was build like this:

She understood it, and even though some instinct was saying he was still bad news, mountains of pain, she kissed him back even harder. (or maybe that was why)

“I’m not dying,” she said, meeting his eyes.

“Yet.”

And she got to find out what he meant by that when he dragged her upstairs, and she wasn’t thinking. At all. She just wanted to connect with someone, and the lust in his motions of taking off her clothes, his breathing (how he was unraveling because of her) made her feel like this was what making a mark on someone was about.

“Has it been awhile?” she asked, teasingly, and he responded, chillingly with the truth, “I haven’t touched anyone in a very long time.”

She was shut down, mercifully. She just wanted to forget about the world. Could be it.

Claire went into it blind, however. She had no idea how it would feel, and he felt good. To the point of too good, to the point of grazing an edge, an end, and while he was inside of her, he made a point in supreme self-control to look into her face and see that he was right—

But Claire enjoyed being wrong this time, and so when he collapsed on top of her, breathing hard, he didn’t quite get what he wanted. Claire got everything. She felt as if all the blackness that she had kept inside of her had been released. Gone.

He rolled over, as if unsure of how she’d react and not really wanted to care about how she would.

Claire let him get comfortable, and then she followed him, climbing on top of him.

He sighed. “Of course you’d be on my back. It is where you are most of the time.”

She made herself comfortable.

“I’m too tired to move you,” he admitted and she smiled.

“No wonder, you’re pretty good.”

“You…audacious.” He paused. “But when you’re right, you’re right. You’re not terrible.”

She pressed down with her body.

“Goodnight, Claire.”

She stared at the ceiling. She supposed she felt different now. If it was just between him and her, then…

“I think the roof has a leak,” she said, out-loud.

“Goodnight, Claire.”

“Goodnight, Adam.”

He sighed again and fell asleep not soon after. She stayed up.

To fix the roof, in the morning, Claire climbed up on the roof and after a few hours, he followed her up there. It was easily fixed enough, but instead of climbing down, she pulled him off the roof with her. He wasn’t expecting it, certainly, but she suddenly looked at him stretching and staring at the sun, and she wanted to see it happen.

This, she could break through walls with, and it be just the same as the sex.

So, she charged him, and all he got out was an ‘of-‘ before they plummeted to the earth. There was always this space in time when the world seemed to center on you alone, and the mind hesitate (through that alone, she could control her own lost of control).

She broke her neck, and she thought he broke his back.

Claire healed and thought that maybe, that was just a her thing, but he crawled on top of her the moment she could breathe again, pinning her.

“That was nothing. You should try the buildings in New York.”

“I have,” she said, and he stared at her with a whole new understanding that no one else really had. He pulled her to him, and finally everything made sense. For all of it, they both didn't truly want to die for good.

She knew as long as she could touch him, and he could touch her (it went both ways), maybe, just maybe, they’d keep each other alive.

And sane.

***

The killing thing had to stop.

It just had to stop. She just didn’t want to be the one to stop first. When they came upon the abandoned car lot with all the cars there, he had looked at her with a smile, and Claire knew he thought she wouldn’t say anything.

Trying to run him off the road with the car was pretty fun, though. He picked the faster car but she picked, what she considered, the steadiest. His was a Lamborghini, and hers was a Hummer.

She was pretty sure it was fairly wrong to ruin these cars, but she pressed the pedal down and chased him through the curves of the street. She tapped him, and he almost lost control but maintained it, grinning over his shoulder at her.

He thought he could get away but she saw the hill coming and had a crazy idea. He’d be so mad. Claire grinned and pressed down on the pedal one more time, gaining momentum. She soared above the hill, planning to come down on him right when he was turning the corner—

Only he wasn’t there, below her: he had stopped the car.

She crashed into a wall.

“I knew what you were thinking.” Adam pulled her out of the wreckage, and she laughed, flushed and exhilarated.

“Still, it was a good plan.”

“I’d have tried the same. Once.”

She staggered a little but maintained her balance, fixing her clothes.

“Next time, just get a faster car,” he advised her, and she eyed the Lamborghini.

“How fast can it go?”

“I was holding back.”

Claire bit her lip. “I saw this in a movie once.”

“With a statement like that, this can only…end well,” he corrected at her look.

She jumped on the hood of the car. “I need something to hold on to.”

“Oh dear…” His voice ended as he stared at her, watching her perched on the car. “That is the most devastatingly stunning sight I’ve yet to see.”

Claire wiggled a little.

“I’ll get the ropes,” he said. “Now this, I really do have to see. You're beautiful, you know.”

She flushed a little and leaned back, getting her bearings.

Lamborghini’s really do go fast.

And stop a little too quickly.

The sex after that one was more memorable.

***

Claire didn’t mean to snap.

She had gotten some Tide from the store like her mom always had. She had washed the sheets in it, and she was laying besides him in the feeling of clean mixed with their sweat. She was breathing in the smell, and that was when she began to cry.

It was more like she hadn’t realized she was crying, or was going to. She was half asleep, breathing in the smell, and suddenly she was crying violently, as if she’d never stop. She felt like screaming instead, but she knew she really would never stop then.

She moved to get up, as to not wake him—

Because he was in this horrible situation, too, and that wasn’t fair of her to cry on him. She didn’t want to cry on him, show how hurt she was. She had tried so hard not to.

But his hand was on her shoulder before she could get out of the bed.

He looked at her silently, his eyes bright, and it was like she had killed him. He looked as if he didn’t know what to do. There was nothing he could do.

He moved, pulled her back into his arms in the bed, and she was about to protest. She didn’t want that, not right now.

Then she realized he wasn’t going to do anything but hold her. It was then—just that small moment—that would make her love him no matter what.

“I’m sorry,” he said, broken, and she held him back.

They held each other in the dark.

The next morning kill session had something different--for a second, he looked as if he...would finish her off. For good. For--out of this horrible world...

He backed the car up.

For that look, that second, she'd love him even more.

 

***  
“No wonder you were a mercenary. Look what you did.”

He had single-handedly killed everything in the garden. He was also denying it with every shred of his being.

“I saw a creature out there,” he said. “It dug everything up, not me.”

“So put it back.”

Adam stared at the ceiling. She had to fight with him because that, she felt, was what kept him around. Some sort of strong dislike. Well, good. Once she opened the sex door, it was a door he was most often at. She had obviously started something. He wanted to show her everything she could feel, and she didn’t mind being shown everything.

During the day, though…she almost lost him each day. This wasn’t his thing, and while it certainly wasn’t hers, she took on most of it for him. Yet that didn’t seem to make him content. Something was very wrong with him, only she just couldn’t figure it out.

He’d get distant during the night: look at the empty town they’d walk in as if he still didn’t quite believe it to be empty, his eyes searching. So, she usually had to irritate him to death to get him to stop thinking on whatever it was.

Sometimes Adam would try: tell her she was beautiful, or try to be positive and light some candles during a dinner of theirs to be more...romantic.

A day ago, there had been a huge problem. She idly picked up the book he had been reading this whole time: it was one about philosophy and she was about to crack it open when he distracted her by coming up behind her. When she managed to get back into the room, the book was in the fire. She’d asked him about it, and he said it was a failed philosophy.

She had asked, “What kind of philosophy?”

“I believe you haven’t read it.”

“That’d be why I’m asking.”

“Think about it,” but he looked at her with some kind of anticipation, a distant cousin of fear. She had nothing to say but before she could, he had kissed her again.

Then there were the times he had horrible nightmares. Claire would say it was a long life. She had quite a few herself for being just…a few years. But his were different in tone, and he was always too cheerful in the mornings after. She tried to let him wake up himself, but sometimes she had to wake him up, and those mornings were tense and dangerous.

Now, while she had his attention, she grabbed a rake and made a big show of going outside, but he stood up and held out his hand for the rake.

She raised an eyebrow.

He grabbed it and when she didn’t let go, shook it hard. She let go of it because she wanted to. Not because she was actually shaken off. Not at all.

She watched him go outside, in one of those suits he still never leaves behind –and he doesn’t wear pajamas, she found out, he slept in the nude—interesting discovery. She saw him almost politely rake at the ground, and then—slowly losing temper—he butchered it, dirt flying everywhere.

He looked up and caught her watching.

“Come here!” Claire called, waving her hand. He insolently threw the rake aside, steeling himself for a fight. She wrapped her arms around him. “I love you.”

She didn’t know she was going to say it, but she saw him, and thought her words were true. Actually, she didn’t think of them at all, she just said them.

Judging by his expression, you’d have thought she’d killed him for good.

His first sentence after a long silence, where she had retreated to a side of the home and stayed away from him—

And this was for days, and after that door had opened, he was the first to cave.

“You shouldn’t love me,” he spoke from behind the door of the room she had barricaded herself in. “That’s a very grave mistake, take it from me.”

Eventually, she came out but she didn’t mention it again.

“I hope that wasn’t a womanly issue,” he informed her idly, rolling his eyes.

And that was when she realized something else. For the last few weeks, she had been late. Her heart stopped and she retreated to her side of the house once more.

***

 

“Every time something is wrong in the house you take it upon yourself to run through the halls like you’ve lost your mind,” he said, driving the car back from the theatre.

Claire had said going to a movie would be depressing, but he had protested…only to have the nerve to (right in the middle of the story) say that this was all rather depressing, wasn’t it?

“It’s because I’m happy.”

“Happy that there’s another problem? Another problem that I have to deal with tediously?”

“That you still want to deal with problems at all is pretty good. But I don’t know, I guess I think stupid things still happening makes the world make sense.”

He was quiet, and she was quiet. She was comfortable in that quiet, and didn’t expect him to put his foot down and take them to such a high speed. He gave her that look and she realized what he was about to do.

“No!”

“Faster then!”

“I’m pregnant!” Claire shrieked as they cut a corner, heading straight for a wall of trees.

How he managed to angle the car so it wasn’t such a devastating wreck was an amazing feat of skill. He paled and reached out to steady her with his arm because obviously neither one of them were wearing a seatbelt (though she should have been).

They tilted into a ditch and she fell on him but that was the worst that had happened. Maybe.

“I think I am,” she corrected.

He put his arms around her and they stayed there with the engine cooling.

***

Turns out, Claire was. She was starting to show.

She wasn’t ready for this, and she told him as much as they lay together, in a very silent world.

“I’ve had experience taking care of children,” he soothed.

“I thought you hated it,” Claire said.

“I was younger then.”

“You’re still going to hate it.”

“Be that as it may, it seems to be…the only responsible option.”

“You’d want to bring a child into this empty world,” she said. “That’s supremely unfair.”

“I don’t quite know that it's empty. I’ve been distracted.”

“Please. Blame me more.”

“Claire,” he said, warningly, and turned over to face her. “I want to keep the child.”

“I’m not sure what I want.”

“Then that makes my decision the one we are going with.”

She propped herself up on her elbow and stared at him. He didn’t raise his head off his pillow, glancing over every now and again.

“What?” he relented. “What’s upsetting you besides all of that?”

“The virus is still around.”

“I can’t be sure of that either. It’s certainly not written in stone that it’d still last.”

“What if it is? Do you really want to see something like that?” Claire asked in horror.

“With us as the parents, do you really see it as a problem?”

“But to take the risk.”

“Then climb up on the roof and jump,” he offered coldly, and turned his back on her.

“You can be the meanest son of a bitch in the world,” she informed him.

“Love the language and moreover, the accuracy of the statement,” he said drily.

She moved to leave but he reacted despite himself and grabbed her arm.

“I’m sorry.”

“I think you just say words to say them,” Claire said, and his eyes hardened. But his grip remained. She looked away, not out of weakness but trying to figure out what to do.

“What will you do?” he asked, pushing her decision to the limit.

“Well, I’m not going to climb up onto the roof and jump,” she said nastily.

“Good. Good,” he said, pulling her back down. He looked at her with some hope, and she felt her resolve weaken again.

Claire fell into an uneasy sleep.

***

“We should start thinking of baby names,” Claire suggested.

Now, a girl’s dream should be about a wedding, but she doubted there was a real need for that, as a girl’s dream might not count in a wasteland.

“You can do that bit.”

He had now taken to reading random cartons, and this orange juice carton must have had the epic about the beginning of the universe.

“How about Angela?”

“…All right, let’s think of some baby names,” he said. She smiled a little despite herself.

“Is there any name you like?”

“No,” he said, stubborn about this to the end.

“What about someone from a…first family or something?”

He looked at that carton again. “In that case, Eve.”

“Oh you asshole, that’s…..completely perfect.”

“…Ironically it is. Though it could give off the wrong message.”

“To who?”

He shrugged. “Just because it’s the two of us doesn’t mean we should have a complete disregard for dignity.”

“Then we’ll cheat and call her—if it is a her Evelyn, and then use the nickname when we feel like it.”

“That’s diabolically clever,” he commented. “I like it. Evelyn is a wretched name but it’s worth it.”

She wondered what would come of this, and surely it was nothing good. She knew that much. She knew that much.

Yet she couldn’t climb up on that roof. She wouldn’t. And he knew as much, too.

***

In the end, it didn’t matter.

The child, which for all the talk, had been a boy, and he didn’t last for a few hours. Of course, Adam pushed it as hard as he could, bringing him back each time the child’s crying stopped.

“Give him time to adjust. He just needs time to adjust,” he said, as if in a mantra more to himself than her.

Claire didn’t say a word; she just watched this go down again and again in the doorway. She couldn’t get closer because he wouldn’t let her. She could sense it, and she didn’t want to see the boy’s face.

This was horrible. What had she done to deserve this? She hadn’t done anything, that was the horror. This little boy who she wouldn’t name didn’t do anything.

She took a step into the room and he wheeled on her in an instant.

“Give him time.”

“You live with it. I’m not.”

“What?”

Claire escaped down the stairway and he had to stay near the end.

***

She was found again, having chosen their old place.

There was a great music selection. She sat alone, staring into the mirror behind the bar and she felt as if she had been gutted and it had stuck this time. She kept hearing his voice because in her blood, that was her instinct.

Claire had that to live with too, now. The door opened and she saw him in the mirror. She expected smug hostility but instead she saw something quite different.

Complete hopelessness. Even that time in the power plant, she hadn’t really seen him give up entirely.

“It’s done. I’ve done it.”

Claire’s heart sank. And she had left him with it.

“I buried him. I marked the place for you, if you want.” He threw himself into the chair, looking like death.

She approached him cautiously. “I was wrong to leave.”

“No,” he said hollowly. “I should have known to wait a few more years before…a few more years. From now on, just for a few more years, we should be careful.”

“Did you know before?” she asked.

“I…I thought with both of us, it’d work out.”

She put her hand on his shoulder. “All right.”

“Where are you going to go? Just in case I need to find you.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“How could you stay after that?” he burst out. “It was horrible. I needed to do it, but…it was horrible.”

She moved a chair up to his, and he was looking as if he was about to jump out of his skin.

“Because you know why.”

“Stuck with me, I know, I know.”

Claire shook her head. “I told you something once. You didn’t like what I said, but it’s true.”

He stared down at the counter, not blinking. She was getting worried, starting to have a new fear. She put an arm around his shoulder. “You’re not so bad once a person gets to know you,” she offered, teasingly even though she was dying inside. Why couldn’t he—

She had only been teasing. He knocked his seat back, and she had to move away quickly.

“No. No. Look,” he said. “I’m…”

“Did you kill Angela?” Claire asked, forcing herself to. He whirled in his spot, staring at her. “If you did…the virus would have gotten her,” she offered. “In the long run.”

He laughed, and suddenly that was when everything happened.

“You mean I would have gotten her in the long run,” he screamed at her. Claire stared at him, trying to…he grabbed the counter, trembling. “Where’s a time-traveler when you really bloody need one, that’s what I’d like to know!”

“What did you do?” she asked, gripping the side of her chair.

“First off, I started the Company. How’s that for a start?”

Her mouth dropped open. He stared at her from the mirror. “Not a bad one, I see.”

Claire clenched her jaw. “…And? What does the Company matter now anyway?” she asked, defiantly. “Then, okay, your legacy was lost in a plague.”

“A plague. Yes. A very well-made plague.”

The energy in her body pooled out of her. “…I’m not getting-.”

“You get my meaning perfectly. Only with the Company’s knowledge of specials and it’s exploration into genetics could have created such an efficient killer. Too efficient. That was my mistake.”

Her words … “No. Take it back. Say you’re just being this way because of what happened with the baby.”

“I wanted to start over. That was all. I wanted a better world for people who were suffering, were corrupt. After what I’ve seen, you couldn’t blame me. If the world was full again, you’d look at me at my age and want the same thing!”

Claire stood up. And he looked at her.

“My family,” she said, wonderingly. “I…” She stared out at the dark.

“Would have died eventually.”

She saw the gun on the table nearby. The gun that he had brought with him…to protect himself from animals or… She moved towards it like a ghost and gripped the handle.

“Claire.”

“You aren’t sorry, are you?”

“I regret not testing the virus out more thoroughly. Believe me, I regret that.”

And she had slept with him. And she had loved him. She felt as if he had stolen everything from her.

“If you want to try and kill me, then go ahead,” he said. "You don't want to be alone. I know you. I can say whatever I please, and you won't leave."

“Deep down, you’re going crazy over this. You are sorry, and I know that. I accept that." His face tightened at these words. "I’ve slept beside you and I know you too, now. Whether you like it or not. This is just another trap you've set for yourself, just the same as getting caught by your own damn Company.”

He just smirked at her while his hands tightened on the countertop.

"And you're right. I don't want to be alone."

So, she raised gun and aimed it for the back of her head.

“NO!” he screamed and rushed at her, but he was too late. Her world went black.

***

Only to be brought back.

How?

Why?

How?

She was strapped to the bed, and he sat on the edge of it, looking down at her.

“I had to dig that bullet out. You are lucky to be alive.”

She bit her lip and closed her eyes, fighting back tears. He touched her face cautiously.

“I was only lying. I was…being cruel after what happened.”

He waited and there was nothing. He lay down next to her and buried his face into her arm.

“…I might be sorry,” he whispered, barely audible.

Claire gave him nothing.

***

“I can’t take it back,” Adam pleaded. “What else do you want from me?”

She couldn’t speak to him, and nothing he could do to induce her to talk, to even look at him. He seemed hesitant about how far too push her, his fear now apparent.

“The one time I’m honest is the time that screws me over, is that it?”

Nothing.

“I wanted to talk to someone about it! Would you, look at this disaster!”

Claire stared at the ceiling, lost. He drifted around the edges of the room.

"I might..." Be sorry, she thought. "I might...Might have grown too...fond. I might l-"

She blocked out anything else that was said.

 

***

One day, he took her for a walk to clear her head.

She asked to go into the field, and he allowed it, staying beside her. There was one thing he didn’t know about that field because he never wanted to dig in it. She knew there was a hole there.

“Adam,” she said, near the spot and he nearly started in shock.

“Yes?”

“I don’t forgive you,” and while he opened his mouth, no doubt to make a smart reply, she pushed him, and at first he just hit the planks.

Then he went all the way through.

She could hear his screams from the house.

***

Claire left him for two weeks.

She nearly drove off several times…she did drive off several times but she’d loop back. She’d sleep in the bed and wish she could cry.

For all those faces in those cars. She couldn’t give him what he deserved. Not exactly in that way at least. Because she loved him. She hated him with every breath she took, but she loved him as well—in that ghostly dead way, and she couldn’t bear to think of him trapped forever in a hole.

She understood how he...got to that place in his head, how it had happened.

And that understanding kept her there.

After two weeks, she threw a rope ladder down and quickly made her way to her car parked on the edge of the field. She saw him climb out of it, make it to the top, and look her way. She had the gun loaded and ready.

He moved closer, his face stone, and she aimed the gun out the window.

“Enough. Stop right there, or it’s a headshot.”

He took in the sight of the car and he seemed to realize everything. “And you’re leaving.”

“That’s right.”

“Why should I stop walking then?” he asked. “Why?”

“To give me time,” she said. “Do you understand?” Her face burned, and she wanted to die. She couldn’t believe, after everything, this was where she was, in this place and this time.

“I’m…do I have something to hope for?”

“…I’m sorry to say that you do,” Claire muttered darkly. “I’ll be at my dad’s. In California.”

“When should I get there?” he asked, bluntly.

“A year. And then we’ll see. I might ask you to leave again. Maybe for two or three more years. Maybe more than that. Even if I don’t, this will take a long time to get over.”

“I can live with that,” he said, smiling, and looking tired.

“I guess you better. Goodbye, Adam.”

“Goodbye, Claire.”

Claire didn’t look back in the rearview mirror. She knew he’d be there in two months, and she’d have to tolerate him and be on guard at the same time. She doubted she’d be over anything in two months.

But she had to give him something to hope for. That was how she was going to keep him on the planet, with this pain of enduring him.

As for his part: living with himself was the worst punishment for him. Even if he didn't see it, she could.

The drive back home was long and dark but Claire could live with it.

**Author's Note:**

> The car stunt theme is from the movie, Death Proof. :)


End file.
